Thank you for joining us. This
is Pastor James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Baptist Church,
and the sermon you're about to hear was preached on Christmas
Day of 2016 as the saints gathered to celebrate Jesus Christ. I
am specifically talking about regeneration, or what John 3
illustrates as the new birth, or the being born from above,
or by the Spirit. This sermon is an emphatic expression
of the good news of Jesus Christ, as well as a quick doctrinal
overview of what Jesus teaches about the new birth in John 3.
And I pray that it will be a blessing to you, and I pray that you would
take heed, beloved, just as I have, as I refresh my mind on these
truths, to not put hope in my own work, in my own faith, or
in my own evidences or fruitfulness, but to put my hope completely
in the person of Jesus Christ and His righteousness and everything
that He's done to accomplish my salvation. And in even those
times when I doubt or feel frustrated or I'm unable to effectually
see my salvation before me, it is all the more reason then,
especially, that I should put my faith in Jesus Christ alone.
And this is possible because God makes us alive through the
Spirit. that we might continually believe
in Jesus. So I pray it would stir you as
well as give you confidence that Christ alone is our only source
and hope of eternal life. Well, it's a good day to worship. Pretty much the whole of our
country is in some generic way pointing to the advent of Jesus
Christ. In 20 years, I have preached
two times related to Christmas. And the reason that is so is
because very few times during that Christmas week was there
opportunity for preaching because of everything else that was going
on. Those of you who know what we believe because of what the
Bible teaches know that the children of God at the Church of Jesus
Christ are actually starved when the preaching of the Word is
not there. It'd be like going to a restaurant,
walking in, paying $10 a head, and looking at other people eat
while you walk out. It wouldn't even be that good. At least you'd be seeing the
preparation, the delivery, and the consumption of food. It'd
be close. But church, I have found it very
difficult to reconcile the pardoning of a pulpit for the sake of anything. What do I mean by that? Why would
there ever be a logical, rational, or divine, glory, majestic, why
would there be anything that would be greater than hearing
God's Word when you gather as God's people? And I'll tell you
why so many people believe that there's something greater. It's
because in our flesh, in the natural state of humanity, we
like what we love most. And what we desire most in the
center of our soul is that that is exactly our treasure. Psychology
says it, and Jesus says it. Wherever our treasure is, there
also is our heart. How do we know? We can see what
we do. We can hear what each other say.
And this morning, I am not going to assume anything about any
of us. Most of us, we've tracked together
for several years now as a church plant, now a planted church.
I think we can stop telling people we're a church plant. We're sort
of like a small sapling now, not a plant. And by the Lord's
grace, He will grow us in roots that will be so deep that we
cannot be shaken, that it would be evidenced by the glorious
affection we have for Christ and for His Word and for His
people. Even that which we say is a reflection
of that which is overflowing in the heart, what we talk about,
where we spend our time, And beloved, I want to say this this
morning, as last week I told you that I felt led by the Lord
to really deal with some matters relating to the body, not specifically
Grace Truth Church as a people, but as the body as at large. and to make sure that because
of my assumption, we don't miss out on the teaching that God's
Word gives us in its full counsel so that I don't have to come
back a month from now or a year from now or a decade from now
and go, wow, I should have talked about that. Last week, I talked
about the priority of the local church. and how we are, as God's
people, commanded to be in fellowship and in covenant with other Christians.
Not so that we can come and receive something on the Lord's Day that
we may gather. The very word church means gathered
ones, called out and gathered. And if we're not gathered, the
church is not. We can't even obey one thing
that Paul has written in any of his letters at all if we're
not gathered. How are we supposed to bear one
another's burdens when we're not with one another? How are
we supposed to pray for one another when we're not with one another?
How are we supposed to worship together as a people for God's
own glory by the power of His grace if we're not together?
How are we supposed to let someone know or how are we supposed to
see the ministry of someone else in our lives when we do not allow
them to be with us together? It is a demonic a demonic lie
when the people of God believe that it's normative to be apart
from each other. And it is a farce to say that
we have the Spirit of God within us, sealed us, that gives us
the mind of Christ and the affection of holiness and divine things
when we have no desire to be in fellowship, in prayer, and
in the worship of God together with God's people. And so I wanted to share that
last week. This week, I want to answer the question, who really
are God's people? Because according to what we
see in our world today, and I'm not even going to say our world.
When I say our world, I'm not talking about the fullness of
the cosmos. I'm talking about just in our culture, maybe just
in our community within 100 miles of here. What we see today is
many people who profess Christ, many people who live in the confines
of a building they call a church, which is a garbage word. There
is no such thing as a church building. It's a building. It's not a church until the people
gather there, and it's never the church. The people are the
church. And people live in profession of Christ, but never live in
the power of Christ. And it's always been taught to
me when I was younger, it was always taught to me, well, you
got to assimilate folks. I don't see that in scripture. You got
to give ownership to people. That's not in scripture. You
got to provide them something that's worth coming. If it ain't
Christ, stay away. If I've got to find something
greater than Christ, then let's take Christ and kick him out
on his butt and worship that. If there's something greater
than the word of God that will feed your soul, then by all means,
burn every Bible that's ever been printed, because glory hallelujah,
I want to worship that which is greater. Amen? Wow, that's
some harsh words. It's Christmas, calm down. No,
I'm excited. Fatigue can excite you. Why? Why worry about stuff like
that? Let's just do our Christian thing. That's the problem, it's
not Christian things. And beloved, I don't want us to miss the boat.
There are a lot of people in the world today who have an incredible
academic understanding of right doctrine. I have fellow students
and fellow peers of mine who were in graduate programs and
postgraduate programs for years. And man, we could sit around.
And man, some of those guys are so sharp, they don't forget a
thing. And they're like, wow, you really knew? You know Erasmus'
original language from memory? You know what he wrote? Wow,
that's great. But you don't know Jesus. Oh,
you can very quickly on a board, you can spill out an exegete,
John 3 and John 6, which is where I'm going to be this morning.
And you can spill this out and you know it. And it's solid when
you get up before people and you say what's right, it is true.
But you have no love for Christ. You just have a love for the
knowledge of Christ. Beloved, do not mix up the two. As Paul would teach the Corinthians
in chapter one of 1 Corinthians, that God takes the nothings of
this world to bring to nothing the things that are, that God
takes the lowly things of this world, that God takes the ignorant
and the stupid and the unwise to befuddle the wise. The life
of the apostles was not esteemed. They would not be esteemed today,
y'all. None of us would appreciate the apostles. We would like Apollos
as a teacher, We would not like Paul. In our culture, we would not
like him. Paul, you can't do a sermon jam with what Paul says. Because
he stutters and he weeps and he's barely able to speak. And
I just, God, could you imagine no microphone? And under tears
having to scream and yell so that people could hear you. And
everybody going, this is the worst oratory I've ever seen
in my life. That was the accusation. Paul could not be of God because
he wasn't as eloquent. We would not appreciate Paul.
And quite honestly, we don't even really appreciate good doctrine
and good teaching except where it doesn't step upon our toes
and hold us accountable to the application thereof. We all like
to say, well, I love Spurgeon. You love Spurgeon because he
wasn't your pastor. I love Jonathan Edwards!" You
would not have. People ran out of his church
and pulled their hair out in chunks. Or George Whitefield. Ditto. People lost their jobs
and their livelihood to run and go hear those men preach. They
would shut down entire communities. And they'd travel for 30, 40,
50, sometimes 3 to 4 hours on horse. A story that I've heard in some
of the annals of history where I can't remember who it is now.
Some of you will know exactly what I'm talking about, about a man
who came into his house and shut down his farm and said, hey,
family, we've got to go. Whitfield is in town. Whitfield
is coming. We have to go. It was about an
hour trip on horse. And the man set out on horse
with his wife running behind. And when the horse got tired,
he put his wife on it because she was lighter than he. And
when the horse got some energy, he put his wife back on the ground.
I'm thinking, that's a real godly man. True story. Well, truly written. But it said, when the man got
to the place where Whitfield was preaching, he could barely
see him. And they estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people had gathered
there. Keep in mind that the average population of a city
was probably 5,600, maybe 1,000. So the people had learned that
this preaching of the word of God was coming, and they wanted
to hear it. Oh, beloved, how I would love
to see the Lord Jesus bring that type of revival into the hearts
of dead men, that we might see people come to the faith of Jesus,
that they might see the glorious ineffable beauty of Jesus Christ
and believe and that they might have eternal life. But friends,
do you know why that kind of revival is not there today? Because
many people who profess Christ are not in Christ and many people
who are in the churches are not the church. We have a very rigid doctrinal
statements. We have a very rigid historical
position on most everything. It is very rigid. We do not shake
from those things. Most people join churches and
they do not even know what their congregation, organizationally,
believe about justification. But even if they do, that doesn't
make them Christian. And I want to ask you the question
today, Are you born again? We have the right answers. We
have done good things. But are we born again? Are you
born again? Nicodemus and John chapter 3
turn there. I probably don't even have to look at it. John
is my thing. But in the latter part of chapter
two of John, we see many people believe in the name of Christ
because of the great signs and wonders that he did. But Christ
himself did not entrust himself to them, for he knew what was
in man. No one had to tell him about the heart of man. Now,
there was a man named Nicodemus of the Pharisees who came to
Jesus by night. And what does Nicodemus do? A ruler of the
Jews. This man came to Jesus by night
and said to him, verse 2 of chapter 3 of John, Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs
that you do unless God is with them. Jesus answered him, truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can
a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into
his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answered, Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not
marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind
blows where it wishes, and you can hear its sound, but you do
not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus says, how can these
things be? Jesus answered him, Are you not
the teacher of all Israel, and yet you do not understand these
things? Truly, truly, the third time now he said those words.
I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what
we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have
told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe
if I tell you heavenly things? No one is ascended into heaven
except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. And as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son
of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life. And I want you to think about
I'm not going to preach all of that. I'm going to deal specifically
with the idea of the new birth. Now, let me let me express something
to you about Nicodemus. Nicodemus is an unbeliever and
he comes to Jesus to tell Jesus that they know who he is, that
they know he is the one come from God. Well, who is the one
that was prophesied to come from God and Messiah? We know that
you have come from God. And Nicodemus is part of the
Pharisees, the ruling class, the Sanhedrin, and the Bible
teaches that he is The Daskalos. What does it say there? The Daskalos
taught Israel. The teacher of the people of
Israel. In other words, Nicodemus was
the premier, the best, the most studied, the greatest academic,
the highest authority of all things Israel, all things scriptural,
all things godly. That anyone who had questions
about anything went to Nicodemus to settle the disputes. That
he was the ruling one over the people of Israel and he was the
head teacher of those who ruled over Israel. That's what Jesus
calls him. Emphatically. Nicodemus knew the law of Moses. He probably had it all memorized
in the Greek. He knew the prophecies. And let
me tell you something. You talk about Paul, who was
also part of the Sanhedrin, who said what? What did Paul say? I'm
blameless before men, for I follow the laws of God. Nicodemus is
probably better than Paul was. And Jesus says some things to
him. The greatest teacher. If Nicodemus were standing up
here preaching, we'd be like, wow. Oh my gosh, I'm coming back
next week. That was awesome. Paul would
be like, dude, we gotta get a new preacher. He was a little washy. Nicodemus, Grant. But Nicodemus was not born of
God. He knew all the right answers, but he was not born of God. You
may know all the right answers, but you may not be born of God,
beloved. Well, this is challenging my
faith. If you're not challenged every time you gather together
with the church, you better run for your life. If the Word of
God is not preached in such a way in its context that would cause
you to question and then be settled and convinced of your need for
Jesus Christ, I'm not talking about a three-minute spot at
the end of a service. That is junk. I'm talking about
the Word of God that gives life to men, mankind. Not just men, but men, women,
children, humanity. Run. I don't want you settled this
morning. I want you stirred. God's word
does not want you comfortable. God's word wants you troubled
and then at peace. So for Christians here today
who are born again, be worshipful, be thankful, be excited, be thrilled,
be awestruck in the wonder of Jesus Christ. We say that Jesus
is the reason for the season. We can argue that. I have 14
things that I wrote this week on how I believe that the Christmas
traditions that we have in this world are actually violations
of direct commandments from Paul. Just in the letter to the Ephesians.
It's fun. I like to do stuff like that.
Because we test everything, don't we? Do what you want to do. But let's
be real. Is it really the reason for the
season? Is Christ really on our minds this morning? Is Christ
the fullness of our hope? Is Christ the greatest of our
satisfaction? I pray that He is. Friends, many people think they're
in Christ, but they're not. Many great theologians are sitting
there going, wow, I failed to believe in Christ. I believed
in my understanding. I failed to believe in Christ
alone. I believed in my faith. I failed to believe in Christ
alone. I believed in the things that I did to exercise that faith.
I failed to believe in Christ alone. I believed in my righteousness. I failed to believe in Christ
alone because I believed in the righteousness that God gave me
and looked at myself and said, I'm okay. Brothers and sisters,
if we can say we're okay by looking at ourselves, we have failed
to believe on Jesus Christ. I've been in grand conversations
over the last few months with some perfectionists. You know
what I'm talking about? Those people that believe that
everyone that is in Christ will never sin again. And this guy,
one of these guys, actually said to me, I said, so you are worthy
of standing before God in your flesh this minute. He said, absolutely,
I've not sinned in years. I'm like, woo! Golly. I didn't know whether to run
or hit him. Thankfully, it was through the
internet. I mean, you know, whatever it
takes. Thumbs down. We can't think that we're okay.
How are we right before God? How can anyone stand Jesus Christ
the righteous? His righteousness alone. His
work. His obedience as a human being.
His holiness. Not ours. Anyone that sits here
and thinks that their holiness and their righteousness and their
good works please God and effectually calls them to stand right before
Him, they, friends, you are lost. Lost. Born again. Justification. Most people say, well, let's
learn about just, but what is justification? Justification is this legal declaration
that God has made on the sinner who is worthy of condemnation,
who he says, no, he's innocent. Because the righteousness of
my son is credited to him and the sin of the sinner has been
credited to my son. So therefore you are justified. But friends, guess what? Justification
doesn't cause the new birth. Faith doesn't cause a new birth.
Nowhere in history do we see anyone ever teaching that the
exercise of man's work causes regeneration. It's not anywhere
in the Bible. It's not been taught anywhere
except, you know, in people who burned to say those kinds of
things. They set them on fire because they were blaspheming
God. I thank God we don't get set on fire for saying things
wrong because I would have been burned many years ago, many times. But friends, justification is
after regeneration. Justification is what God does
and what God says about the person who belongs to Him who has been
born of Him. No sinner that does not believe
on Jesus Christ is justified and no person who believes on
Jesus Christ is not regenerate and no person who is not regenerate
does not believe. The history of our denomination,
we have always said that faith and repentance are inseparable
experiences of grace. Ergo, God's grace comes to you
through the hearing of the word of God and the spirit as it blows
where it wishes, opens your eyes because it's made you new and
you believe. Many people, I don't like that.
That takes salvation out of my hands. If salvation is in our
hands, beloved, we are in a mess. If you don't like the God of
the Bible, you won't like what I'm preaching today, because
it's right from the words of Jesus. What other God is there? The God of tradition, the God
of man, the God of the American church? America actually has
four gods, and they call them all Jesus. Justifications after new birth.
Faith is the gift of God through regeneration, which is the grace
of God. We often talk of what? A lot
of things. Forgiveness, justification, redemption. We all relatively believe that
these things are a work of God and necessary for eternal life
and are a result of eternal life, but the question is, just because
you know that, are you born that way, by God? A couple of things
out of this text. There's one, two, three, four,
four points and 35 sub-points. Not kidding. They'll be fast. Without the new birth, no one
can comprehend, see, look, gaze, or enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus says, Nicodemus, you have professed me rightly, but you
are not born of God, ergo you are not going to be able to see
the kingdom of God. You can't see that which you
say you see. That's why you came to me at night. That's the symbolism
of this evening meeting. And that's why Jesus says later
on down, this is the judgment that the light is coming to the
world, but people love the darkness because their works are evil.
He's telling Nicodemus that all of his piety, that all of his
tradition, that all of his worship, that all of his study, that all
of his academics, that all of his right teaching of the Torah
and Moses was darkness and it left him dead. How many seminarians are going
to go to hell? Most all of them. Most all of them. Seminary doesn't
make you right with God. How many pastors are going to
go to hell? Most all of them, for broad is the way that leads
to destruction, beloved. And men and women of God who
are called by God and filled with the Holy Spirit of God are
not complacent and apathetic about their love for Christ and
they do not sit on their hands and wait for some big movement
or bush in the sky to burn so they begin to live with fire.
God is a consuming fire and he puts life in his people. Why
are you so mad? I'm not. I'm begging you to hear
that you may be destined for judgment. You cannot see the kingdom if
God does not birth you anew. You can believe all you want
to believe. You can know all you want to know. You can walk
all you want to walk. But it is not about our doing
that gives us life in Christ. The kingdom is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the life and the resurrection. He is righteousness. He is wisdom.
He is Lord. He is redemption. Jesus Christ
is the place and the presence and the promise and the power
of the sealed of God. We, beloved, who are in Christ
are sealed by Jesus Christ, who is our kingdom. And he told Nicodemus, you can't
even see me for who I am because you're dead. You're blind. Not
only can you not see me, but you cannot enter into me with
your own efforts. You cannot see the kingdom. You
cannot enter in again. Listen to me. But the kids run
to down, care. Pay close attention. If you're
not born of God, you do not have eternal life. And if you are
born of God, as we'll see in a minute, a great transformation
has taken place in your life. Here, this beloved, the second
thing without the new birth, one remains in his natural state,
the condemned state as an object of wrath. We see that in Paul's
teaching, Ephesians chapter two, for once you were dead in your
trespasses and sins against God. Like what? What? How do we know
you're dead? Paul gives us a very clear because
you follow the passions of your own mind. and you follow the
passions of your own flesh, and you follow the passions of your
own job, and your own hope for your own children, and your own
retirement, and your own future, and your own dreams, and your
own American way, you follow the passions of your mind, and
the passions of your flesh, and we think they're good, but they're
idols. The Christian holds loosely all that we have, and we're not
trying to make a name for ourself or be something. We're nobody,
never a government, never a leader, never a king, never a pastor
who is anything in this world if they do not point to the one
who is everything in all the worlds. Contradict, argue, debate, whatever
you want. Read the English. The Spirit
of God will let you see if you indeed belong to him this day.
You will see and you will savor the glories of Jesus. The debates
of our mouths are proof of our judgment when we do not want
to hear the truth that's coming out of my mouth this day. Beloved,
do not sit this place this morning in judgment. We stay in the natural birth
if we're not born again. Jesus says, that which is flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. There
is nothing else it can do but be flesh. And those that are
in the flesh are dead in Christ. Dead to Christ. But that which
is the Spirit is the Spirit, and the Spirit makes us alive.
Pay attention, beloved. If you are in Christ, hear these
words this day. In Adam all die. There's no possible
warrant. There's no possible path. There's
no possible opportunity to see or enter the kingdom of heaven
in our flesh without a miracle. You see, that's what's beautiful
about it. We talk about the miracle of Christ coming for Christmas.
What is Christ coming for? To do a miracle. What's the greatest miracle?
I've seen people healed only to die again. I've seen people's
ears healed. I've seen people who had arthritis
have no more pain and then eventually get a little bit older and a
little bit sicker and a little bit better. All miracles that are in this
life are temporal and never, never lasting except the miracle
of life in Christ. I would rather see five come
to faith in Jesus Christ and be made new than 50 billion be
healed of their flesh and walk off to live as an ungodly object
of wrath. But we like the other. Why? Because
it appeases that which we desire most. Selfishness. And Adam I'll die. Without a
miracle, we will stay in our current kingdom. What is it?
The kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of the world, the kingdom of
the Antichrist, the kingdom of this life, the kingdom of flesh.
Are you in the kingdom of Christ? Are you in the kingdom of darkness?
Are you in the kingdom of light this day? It's an easy question,
you know, but I'm not sure. Believing on Christ is not something
that is so simple, is it? Easy believism is a heresy. Work
salvation is a heresy. Baptismal regeneration is a heresy.
These are false truths. These are false gospels. The
only true gospel is that Christ alone can save us because he
alone is worthy and he alone has been sent to do the job of
saving sinners, hope and trust and believe on Christ. If we were to get into chapter
3, down in verse 16, For God so loved the world that He gave
His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish,
but whosoever believes not on Him is condemned already. See,
we forget that. We never see that verse up at
the ballgames. Nobody has ever put John 3, 18 on the placard. Whoever
does not believe is condemned already. Oh man, you got the
wrong verse, John. Six, not eight. Same language,
same word. Pascho, ho, pas, pistouan. That's the Greek. Those that
are believing have life. Those that are believing not,
do not have life, but are condemned. That's what it says. In every
stretch of every language in the world, that's what it says.
Are you believing on Christ? Are you born of God and Christ? Many are made alive because he
has done the work. The spirit is the one who gives
birth. The spirit is the one who creates faith. The spirit
is the author. Jesus is the author and the founder
and the perfecter of our faith, according to Hebrews. So without the new word, new
birth, no one can see or enter the kingdom of God. And without
the new birth, one remains in his natural state, condemned
as an object of wrath. The third thing I want us to
see here. Without the new birth, one cannot understand the things
of heaven, the work of God, much less live by faith alone. This
is why so many people feel compelled to earn God's grace and affection
through right living. Man, I just got to get my life
together. You ever heard that? You ever said that? OK, great. It's not a bad idea. But getting
your life together is just for you and your life, not for your
justification before God, not for your righteousness, not for
eternal life. Getting our lives together is not effectual unto
salvation. So many professing believers
are powerless in their life, have no spirituality, because
I believe a lot of people who profess Christ are walking with
a false hope while living in death. They say, look at me,
I'm in the light, but nothing about their life shines as light.
Nothing. And John says in his first epistle,
as it is, these things are written in John's gospel that you may
know that you have eternal life. And in 1 John, we see what that
eternal life looks like. If we say we have fellowship
with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie, we do not practice the
truth. And if we say we walk in darkness, I mean, we have
light, but we don't obey, if we don't love our brothers, if
we don't follow the commands of Christ that are not, this
is John's word, that are not a burden to us. Why? Because
we love Him. Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commands.
If you don't obey the commands of Christ and you cannot obey
the commands of Christ, Christ is not yours. You are not his.
It's very simple. I've had people not get as angry
over me if I were to say that their child is horrid looking. Isn't my little girl cute? She
is the ugliest thing on two legs. People are like, well, that's
insulting. But if I tell them that they may not be in Christ,
they hate me. You know why? Because the heart
of the Antichrist, the heart of the natural man, is the heart
of Cain, who hated his brother Abel because his works were righteous.
And there's nothing we can do about it, beloved. They hated
Jesus. Who hated Jesus? The religious people. You know
who followed him? Whores, robbers, thieves, and
murderers. Well, you said that word in church.
I did. Maybe I shouldn't have. Fallen ladies. Why don't somebody
help them up? Jesus did. Stood up redeemed. The new birth enables the believer to see,
the unbeliever to see. The new birth is the miracle
of God who imparts all the reward and privileges therein. God's
work is His work and man marvels after he's made anew. You ever
seen people and you always wonder, why can't I be like them? Wrong
comparison. Why can't I be like Christ? Paul
says to follow me as I follow Christ. So beloved, we should
have that same thing. Hey world, hey church, follow
us as we follow Christ. You follow me and I'll follow
you. As you follow Christ, I'll follow you. And as I follow Christ,
you follow me. And we're following after Christ. It's a really weird
situation when people in our country hear someone preach or
get excited, or they're always sharing their faith, they're
always living for Christ, they're dedicated to the church, they're forgiving,
they're repentant, they're humble, they're sacrificial, and they're,
oh man, that's a radical Christian. No, that's a normal Christian
who's been made by God. I beat the horse of investing
in the Word of God as a habit and a discipline. I beat the
horse of praying. You know, the hardest thing in
my life to do is pray. Let me share that with you for
a second. It is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Every
time, I'm not kidding, when I begin to pray, I have to start praying
that God would enable me to pray, and then I have to pray in the
middle of that prayer, God, bring my heart and mind back to you,
that I might continue to pray that you would help me pray.
And after an hour, I'm still praying for God to enable me
to pray. To which I get up and go, okay, that's all I need to
pray about today. And as the Spirit brings us to
thought and the Spirit brings people to mind, as the Spirit
moves in us and is with us all day long, then things come to
mind. And I can say, which is a short sentence or a short thought
or a short place of compassion, Father, you've got to deal with
this. Father, be with them. And that's praying without ceasing.
The devil hates it when we pray. And so oftentimes we give up.
Your pastor is no different. It's difficult. It's a spiritual
war. And so when I can't pray, I just
open this. And I can hear the Lord, and then I can pray as
I hear. And I can be a little bit more
in tune. It's a battle, y'all. The new birth opens the eyes,
the heart, the mind, and the life to the beauty and the glory
of that which is given and granted. God opens the door to heaven. without the grasp of the one
who is placed there. God places his people in his
presence and they have great understanding and insight that
comes from heaven and they no longer walk in darkness. The
last point for today. The new birth God has powerfully
opened life to dead people. I want you to think about it
for a second. This is a very poor apologetic. It's a logical argument,
but it's really silly, and it doesn't win anything. You know
why? Because discussion, logic, rationale, debate, apologies,
all those things do not win people to Christ. It wins people to
right understanding of things, just like Brother Trey could
teach me calculus, but it doesn't mean I'm going to do it. But no one has had a say in their
birth physically and no one has a say in their birth spiritually.
That's an insane contradiction to say that I birthed myself. Or worse, I gave God permission.
If you gave God permission for anything, you're my new God.
Because you have just taken supremacy from Him. Well, that's the way
the Lord works with the free agency of man. Find that in the
Bible, I'll give you $6 billion. You'll have to go to the jailhouse,
though, because that's where I'll be, because it'd be a bad
check. I'll give you $6 billion, if you can find that in the Bible.
Free agency unto salvation is obsolete. It's moot. It is by
faith alone. It is by grace alone. It is by
Christ alone. And, oh, those are three things. No, that's
one thing. It's Jesus. It's all the work of God. And when we stand before the
Lord and argue that, we will stand in judgment as we argue
it with a smugness about us, and He will condemn us. He will
say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, for you and your
will took the own way. John chapter 1 says that no one,
no one, no one. What does it say there? No one. Look at John 1. He came to his own, verse 11,
and his own people did not comprehend him. But to all who did, he believed
in his name. He gave the right to become children
of God who were born not of blood, not of your genealogy, not of
your roots, not of your condition. I talked about last week how
many people feel secure in their salvation because of their proximity
to the church. Nor the will of the flesh. nor the decision of the mind. Andross is the word there in
the Greek and it translates husband, which means head, which we understand
as mind. The will of man, the will of the mind, the decision
of the flesh, the will of the flesh or the blood does not make us
born, but we who are the children of God, who have the right to
believe in his name, you see that the right, because we have
been born of God. That's the doctrinal teaching
of John in the first argument of this outline. And then Jesus
displays it perfectly in John chapter three, and he goes on
to show it in action in John chapter six. The new birth powerfully gives
life to dead people. Let me ask you a question. Is
there transformation of your life? When you are born again,
there's a transformation of sight, a transformation of affections,
a transformation of power, a transformation of focus, a transformation of
understanding. You're not just molded into something
different. You're not just made better. You're not just tuned
up a little bit with a new set of paint, a new pair of shoes.
You are a new creature. When we're born of God, he takes
that old and he throws it away and he makes something new. He
puts to death that which is corruptible. He puts to death that which is
sinful. He puts to death that which is
dead and blind and in darkness and he brings something new to
the surface. Jesus are not. Yes, Jesus, but
God. And Ezekiel 36, what does he
say? It is not for your sake that I'm about to echo Israel,
but for my sake and for the glory of my name, which you have defamed
among the nations, I will cause you to walk in my statutes. I will put a new heart in you.
I will put a new mind in you. Then he lined those people up
and said, all right, guys, here's what we got to do. How many want
it? Me. They all said they wanted God
and we took them to the wilderness. They thumbed their nose at him.
melted down their gold and worshiped the calf. Sadly, most of our golden calves
are in the form of Jesus. The form of church, the form
of theology, the form of religion. There's transformation when God
has given life to the blind, eyesight to the blind and life
to the dead. Friends, do not, do not hear what I am not saying.
There is no transforming act or power in us that puts us right
with God, but God who makes us right with Himself creates a
new man that displays His glory, not only by Himself, but as a
people who is called the church. And if we were to entitle this
message to the priority of the church last week, the power of
the church this week. How is the church powerful? Because
we've been born of God. Have you been born of God? This
transformation, this new man, God produces the fruit of Himself
in affection and worship. God produces obedience, which
produces a righteousness. Not just a righteousness, of
course, the full righteousness is accredited to us. Jesus Christ
came and was born in this world from a virgin, conceived by the
what? Holy Spirit. So Jesus was born
of the Spirit at His birth. And he lived obediently. He fulfilled
all the righteous requirements of the law. He has lived the
way God demands we live. And then God took all of that
righteousness that belongs to Christ and he put it in our account.
We were bankrupt thieves with no hope and nowhere to go. And we heard the statement of
a man named Jesus who had all the righteousness that we could
ever desire. And we went, I hate that. And we heard it again,
and the Spirit of God came inside of us and put a new heart and
a new mind and new ears and new eyes. And we saw it, and we said,
I want that. And the grand thing is, by the
time we say we want that, it's already ours. And we look into
our statement, we look into our account, and we go, I was once
bankrupt, but now I have it all. I was once poor, but now I'm
richer than the glories of heaven. I was once dead, but now I have
a heartbeat that beats for the glory of my God. I was once blind,
but now I see. Beloved. Lost, but now I'm found. I've always been a Christian.
Folks, you better listen to what I'm saying today. Because if
you've always been a Christian, you're lost. If you've never
been blind and then see, you've never seen. If you've never been
lost and have been found, you've never been found. If you've never
been darkened and then come to understanding, you've never been
given life. this righteousness, this life.
He says it must be born of water and of the Spirit. Friends, don't
play the game that these really weird philosophers do. Read the
Bible in its context, in relationship to itself. The Bible teaches,
as Ezekiel 36, there we go, right back there, I will wash you with
water and with the Spirit. So it's symbolic of the work
of the Spirit of God that blows where it wishes and does what
it wants to do, when it wants to do, and it makes new those
people who were not new, who were in need of being new in
His timing. And when He comes and He gives
us life, friends, there's not a simple, there's not a simple,
oh, let me just put it this way, there's not this long process
of salvation. You don't get a little bit of
saved today and a little bit saved tomorrow and a little bit more
saved the next day. You're saved all the time, always, fully and
forever, lest Paul be a liar. Have all spiritual blessings
which are in Christ Jesus, all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, as God loved us, as he predestined us to be conformed
to the image of Jesus Christ, the Son. Now, we know we're not
completely holy in all of our ways because we can sin and we
can fall. We still struggle, we still fight,
but we are made new immediately when we are born again. And we
can put off every sin that hinders us. We can step away from every
addiction. We can step away from every idol.
We can push away. And it's not easy. It's a battle.
It's a war. And you've got to have your brothers
and sisters praying for you and walking with you and standing
with you. But when those people who are born of God see the face
of Christ and see the righteousness of His, the beauty of His righteousness
and know that they have been given all of that as their own,
We as the beloved, we want to walk as Christ has called us
to walk and we fight, don't we? It's a war. We fight to get to
the church, to get with the church. We fight to walk in holiness.
We fight to love our neighbor. We fight the good fight of faith,
knowing that it is not our good and our efforts, but it is the
power of the Holy Spirit who is God, who enables us to be
the way he's called us to be. And this water of the spirit,
as he blows powerfully, wishes as he wishes, he makes new these
people who have been dead. And the water of the spirit of
God fills our lives and floods our lives and cleanses our lives.
And we're made alive and he declares us righteous. God makes dead
people alive through the spirit, through the hearing of the words
of Jesus Christ. He says this and it is true. Because that's always how do
I know that I'm born of God? You've got to hear the words
of Jesus. We see later in John, I'm not
even going to get there today, but John six, we see Jesus say that all
who come to me, I will never cast out all who come to me. No one comes to me except the
Father. Bring Him to me. And all that the Father bring
to me, do come to me. And all that do come to me, I
never cast out. He'll later go talking to the
Pharisees and teaching there, or to the Jews. He'll later say
that the sheep know His voice and hear it, and they obey Him,
and they go out into green pastures, and they eat, and they fellowship
with Him. Friends, the intimacy that has been lost between us
and God is made obsolete. at the cross. The hostility has
been torn down. And if we are born of God this
day, we are at one with God. Is your life an example of your
oneness with Christ? Is your life the example and
the epitome? Well, I just can't stop this.
Yes, you can. You don't want to. You like the way your flesh
rules you. And that's a dangerous place
to be, beloved. Jesus Christ is the Lord of those
for whom He died. We don't make Him the Lord. He
is the Lord. See, that's an error. And words
have meanings, and they can always mean... The same word can mean
something different in a lot of different groups of people,
but here's the point that a lot of people like to tell you. Well,
you can have salvation by, quote, accepting Jesus as a Savior.
You can believe that He's your Savior, but you've got to work
real hard to make Him your Lord. He's Lord. And the Lord of our
lives will produce the fruit of Him in our lives. The wind
blows and we love Him. The wind blows and we know Him.
The wind blows and we follow Him. And the wind blows. Friends,
are you following Christ? Are you preaching Christ? What
does Jesus say? We can't see the wind, but we
can see where it blows and where it's been. How? Hurricane Matthew,
come by my house. There's still junk everywhere.
Still pieces of roof everywhere. Tree limbs that we've gotten
out of the way, everywhere. unpainted fence posts that were
blown down. I couldn't see, well I could see the wind that night,
but you can't see the wind. But you can see where it's been.
Has the wind of the Holy Spirit of God blown in your life? Can
people see the effects of the wind of God in you today? Beloved,
if we're not displaying the work of God, what good are we? Why
do we gather here? Are you born of God this day?
Are you born again? God then, because it is the Spirit's
work, He will come and He will save in His timing and only in
His way, which is to believe on Christ. Born by the will of
God, no blood, no flesh, no mind, no will, we are not able to resolve
to believe in Him. We are not able to come to Jesus
lest He first come to us. I heard someone say many times
that We cannot go to where Jesus is unless He first comes to where
we are. That's not only true in the Advent and the life and
the ministry of Jesus, but friends, that's true about the Spirit
of God. We can't live in the kingdom of light unless the kingdom
of light comes in. What does Paul say to the Corinthians
and the Colossians? He uses this example, snatched
out of darkness and transferred into light. But we think that the gospel
is this escape hatch or that this gospel is a rope, or that
this gospel is some kind of ladder, or this gospel is some kind of,
I don't know, life jacket. It's not. This gospel is a God who is supreme,
who comes into the lives of dead people and brings them to life,
hating Him while we were still sinners. We, in like manner, We see God bring people to life.
We see God bring people to faith. We see God bring people to obedience.
And God gets all the glory for what? For His glorious grace.
All the grand knowledge of God and His Word and His truth will
never be an indicator of God's work in you. Though God's people
will long and know truth, we can know truth without knowing
Christ. Are you born again? You might
say, I'm not sure. But the example of Scripture
teaches us this, that there's never a man who stood and says,
I am right with God, who is right with God in his own efforts. But the example is that Jesus
came to seek and save who? Say it. Sinners, the lost, those
who are dead. But He will not. He will oppose
the righteous. He will oppose the proud. He
will oppose those who are high and lifted up. He will oppose
those in the high church. He will oppose those in the high
ministry. He will oppose those with a high gospel. He will oppose
those with a high vision of grandeur. But Jesus came to save those
who say, help, I'm a sinner. I cannot do this. I cannot save
myself. I cannot come to you. I cannot
know life. I cannot be clean. Oh God, have
mercy. Have mercy on me, a sinner. Those
are the exact words of Jesus in a parable giving the illustration
of what the new birth looks like. And all through history, people
have tried to replicate that. Finney and all of his followers
that came after him, they tried to replicate the fact that people
would pull their hair out in the preaching of Jonathan Edwards
because he would preach about the judgment of God and he'd
preach about the glorious beauty of the grace of Jesus Christ
and His good news. And they were like, I can't do
this anymore. I'm trying on my own. I hate myself. Oh God, have
mercy. And they'd tear their clothes
and they'd tear their hair and they'd run out into the streets
and not even get to hear the rest of the sermon. And people
try to replicate that, hey, y'all go crazy, y'all fall down, y'all
pass out and y'all just cry. And people think the Spirit's
moving and they'll move. That doesn't work. Somebody asked me just this week,
is there any evidence in history or the Spirit where people were
slain in the Spirit? I said, yeah. Ananias and Sapphira? Those who took the table in an
unworthy manner? Dang it! Slang, right there. Some of you
are just blown away. You know, only the people that
came to arrest Jesus when they said, when He says, who are you here?
I'm here to pick up the one whose name is Jesus or they call the
Christ. He says, I am. And they, whoo, whoo. And then
they stood back up and He says, what are you doing here? Oh,
we're here to pick up Jesus. Otherwise, we see it in history.
Only several places where people were overwhelmed with the grief
of their own sin. Are you overwhelmed with the
grief of your own sin? Beloved, that's a start. And you need
to come to the place of knowing that Jesus is the only hope you
have and that nothing else you are and nothing else you can
do can warrant righteousness for you and cry out. What's the
action on your part? Cry out to God. How many times, just this week,
have you cried out to God, beloved? Even you, even we who are born
again. Oh, I did that years ago, brothers
and sisters. Salvation is not a point in history,
but a present reality. Temptation comes our way. We
see it. We hate it. We look again. Just
this week. Or sometimes we just, we're too
quick to answer and we say the wrong thing. We have the wrong
attitude. We feel slighted or hurt. What is it the devil allows
us to see every day? We grumble about and complain. It's an opportunity to cry out,
oh God, have mercy. Fill me with your spirit. Give
me a sense of completeness. Give me confidence in you. Give
me satisfaction in your gospel. Lord, help me. Those who are
not born of God, you need to cry that God would save you by
his mercy. There is no other way to salvation
except the wind of the Spirit of God blows where it wishes.
If I had time to get into Romans 9, we would, but we don't. We
end this service today with these things that we've learned. Are
you born of God? Are you born again? My prayer is that you would cry. every second, trusting in Christ
that you are His. And when doubt and temptation
and sin and failure come, praise Him that He is the only
way that we can stand. But beloved, look at your lives.
Look at your lives. Do we exemplify being new? If we were all measured, everybody
says, no. So now what? That's why we're
here today together. We journey this life and some
of us maybe 20 years from now may come and say, wow, I've just
been born again. But I pray that this is the day
that you see Christ and that you're made new. If I'd rather
you come to faith in your last breath than come to faith never,
but look good in the eyes of men. Because beloved, the darkness
that we live in and unbelief will be shined upon and the whole
world will see it as unbelief. The struggle that we have against
sin is not yet anything near the struggle that Jesus had,
for none of us have struggled against the temptation of sin
unto the shedding of blood. Jesus knows what we're going
through, and He is our advocate, and He is our propitiation, and
He is our righteousness, and He is our hope, and He is our
power. Hold fast to Him. Let's pray. We love You. We worship You. We praise You. And, O Lord, how quickly I have
gone through that. Father, may Your mercy be upon
our ears and hearts. Lord, please. that we would leave this day
stirred and confident, stirred in that we should shake and tremble
before you who could cast our body and our soul into hell.
But Father, confident, that means with faith, that Jesus Christ
is our only righteousness, our only hope, and our only peace. In His name we pray, amen.